


But I Won't Kiss You Back

by darknesscrochets



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: 5 Times, Angst, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, mild spoilers for roman rogues, not beta read we die like bertie, spoilers for ancient rome, spoilers for early season 4, this is mostly sasha having feelings ngl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:34:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27846126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darknesscrochets/pseuds/darknesscrochets
Summary: Five times someone kisses Sasha on the cheek.
Relationships: Brock & Sasha Racket, Grizzop drik Acht Amsterdam & Sasha Racket, Sasha Racket & Lil' Wilde
Comments: 14
Kudos: 40





	But I Won't Kiss You Back

1: Brock, Other London

"They're--I think they're sending me away."

Sasha looks down after she says that. Not towards the sky--there's no sky to look at, in Other London. Only tin roofs and concrete ceilings and layers of old cardboard. 

No, she doesn't look up. Sasha stares out over the alley from where she and Brock are perched on the retaining wall that makes up one side. Some clever fool built up a shelter next to it, on the other side from the alley. She can see the high water marks, a foot and change above the corrugated metal sheets that make up the roof. It won't survive the next flood, but while it’s still here, it’s an easy way up to the top of the wall, short as they both are for their early teenage years. Maybe if they reinforced the walls, or raised it up on stilts--Sasha’s seen some of the nicer buildings down here built like that, least as much as anything can be nice underground. 

Brock breaks into her train of thought, interrupting her musings on engineering improvements.

"Do you know where? And how come they're doing it _now_? Is it--did we do something?" _Something wrong_ , Sasha fills in in her head. Brock sounds steady, but she knows he’s as worried as she is. Barrett is so easy to cross. Sasha's done it a couple times herself, failed him once or twice on a job. She doesn't like to think about the aftermath.

But she doesn't think this time is like that. All her latest jobs have gone well. Almost… better than usual.

She says as much to Brock. And--

"This time just feels--feels different, you know? Like it's been in the works a while. Been hearing rumors about it for a month or two." Rumors that have gotten more and more consistent, this week. Her grip on the wall tightens, knuckles white with tension.

Brock doesn't miss it. She didn't think he would. They're so in tune with each other; always have been, like two cogs she'd seen in a shop window once, perfectly aligned, teeth intertwined and turning at exactly the same speed.

The shop was gone a week later, and the cogs with it. She’d heard something about missing too many payments to Barrett. His protection isn't cheap, and it's easy to lose.

Sasha's still staring out over the roofs of this part of Other London when she feels something soft on her cheek. Feather-light lips, a bit chapped, there and gone again in a second. 

She looks over at Brock, surprised. They've never been ones for touch, or for affection. Not like that. 

Brock stares back, the tiniest blush creeping onto his face. But her gaze doesn’t stop him from saying, "it's for luck, okay? I heard--I overhead some guy say that the other day, and he then kissed his kid on the cheek. I think--it can't hurt, right? A bit of extra luck?"

Sasha's hand comes up off the wall to touch her cheek. The kiss lingers a bit. She feels warm. Calmer than she was, just a little bit. 

It's the first time anyone’s kissed her. She can't remember the last time anyone even patted her on the shoulder. One of her earliest jobs, maybe, when she'd gotten in and out of a bank with more gold than they'd planned for. Usually, though, people know not to touch a Racket. 

Brock knows. He knows, and the determined look on his face says that he doesn't care. 

Sasha looks away, so he doesn't see her smile. Slight, but it's there. It pulls at her face in a way she's not used to. 

"… Yeah,” she whispers. “Luck."

The next day, Barrett introduces her to Eldarion, and puts a cursed ring on her finger. It feels like a prison.

  


2: Eldarion, Upper London

Sasha hates living with Eldarion. 

She _hates_ it, hates how Eldarion tries to pretty her up, mold her into someone she’s not, make her into some sort of--glass bauble, or something. Empty out her head and fill it with all the useless nonsense that people in rich Upper London society seem to know, like which fork to use at dinner, or which kind of wine pairs with that kind of sweet.

Sasha never had wine before Barrett sent her up here. She’d seen fancy pastries, down in Other London, but not at the kind of shop you’d buy food from. She never bothered looking for them in one of the shops that actually sold things that seemed edible. Money went further on eels.

Eldarion doesn’t seem to get a lot of pleasure out of dressing her up and plying her with wine, even though she does it all the time. 

She’s always complaining how Sasha will never hold still, how her hair’s too short for the most fashionable styles, how she keeps breaking the heels off her shoes. How she refuses to remember which fork you use for salad and which for meat, like it’s actually something that might come in _useful_ someday. 

Sasha doesn’t think it will. Not in her line of work.

She promised to try tonight, though. They’re at some sort of fancy dinner party, in yet another fancy townhouse, owned by some posh airhead with a family name as long as her arm that she forgot as soon as they were introduced. It’s the kind of place she would have been robbing, half a year ago. She can’t stop herself from casing the place, eyes picking out ground-floor windows and chests with cheap locks like it’s second nature. Habit, really. 

Eldarion notices. She always notices. Sasha hates how exposed she feels, under her gaze. Her glare would look like just a glance to anyone else, but Sasha’s seen that glare so many times in the past six months that she can pick up on it. It took a while, but she can.

Eldarion’s guiding hand on her arm turns into a grip like a vice. Sasha knows it for the warning it is.

She thinks, for a moment, about peeling that hand off her arm, about cutting Barrett’s ring off her finger and throwing off her shoes and just… running. Getting out of all this.

She doesn’t. She promised to try. Eldarion said she’d get a free day in the city, if she ‘behaved.’

So Sasha behaves. She turns away from the windows, away from the chests, and puts on her best fancy-people smile. It’s not great. Eldarion winces, but guides Sasha over to a group of ladies chattering on about--something. Dresses? It sounds like clothing, at least. Eldarion’s been drilling her on all the different kinds of skirts and collars and the names of the fanciest shops in the city. Says it’s useful for blending in. She won’t tell Sasha _why_ she’d want to blend in with people who titter like birds when she walks over, heels catching on the long skirt Eldarion had insisted on for tonight.

One of them, the one with the frilliest and most impractical dress, looks Sasha up and down, and brings her hand up to her face. There’s a pause in the conversation, like she’s waiting for something. Sasha doesn’t know what. She looks at Eldarion, then Sasha again, and back to Eldarion.

“This one’s _new_ , isn’t she?” Is all she says.

It’s enough, apparently. The rest of the ladies laugh that bird-like laugh again.

Sasha blushes, hand going for the dagger she stashed under her skirts. She knows what she looks like, and to make it worse, her face goes all blotchy and red underneath the makeup Eldarion pressed onto her face earlier.

It’s a blush of anger, not embarrassment, no matter what these--these _people_ think of her.

Eldarion laughs, and pecks her on the cheek. As she does, she whispers, “put that knife away, or you’ll be spending the next three days locked in your room with nothing but etiquette books for company.”

She turns away, and says something to the other ladies--both embarrassing and condescending, by the tone of it. 

Sasha doesn’t catch it. She looks out towards the rest of the party, away from this corner of stupid, fancy girls, and their stupid, fancy manners. So what if she’s new at this? She doesn’t _want_ to be here. Sasha wants--

She wants to be back where she was the last time someone kissed her on the cheek. She wants to be sitting on an alley wall in Other London with Brock, talking about nothing but their next job and which neighborhoods Barrett is moving in on this week. 

But she doesn’t know where Brock is. She doesn’t know if her old room still has that crack in the floor, or if her favorite eel stand is still there, or if the floods have come and washed that wall away.

Sasha knows one thing, though. 

She knows that under all this glitz, she’s still Other London born and bred, and she’s getting out of here. Away from Eldarion, away from her fake affection and her fancy dresses and her high society _manners_. 

And away from Barrett. If she’s lucky.

  


3: Hamid, Paris(?)

Emerging out of the catacombs to _cheers_ isn’t the weirdest thing that’s happened to Sasha this week--not even close, since she woke up and a machine in the ceiling told her she was dead. It’s still pretty fucking weird.

The Apollo lot let them all down from their shoulders. Sasha’s happy about that; she didn’t want to be up there at all, where everyone could see her and she couldn’t dodge as easily if someone threw something at her, but the paladins wouldn’t really take _no_ for an answer. She’s glad to be back on solid ground now; it’d be better to get inside, even better to be underground again, but she doesn’t think the rest of the Rangers will agree to that, after what happened in the catacombs.

And Sasha can admit, in the safety of her own mind-- _never_ out loud--that it’s kind of nice to see the sun again, too.

She notices when Hamid comes up behind her; of course she does. He might not be as obvious as Bertie or Zolf, but not much gets past her. 

Hamid beams at her when she turns towards him, gives him a nod and a “hey, mate.” He smiles like he’s _happy_ they just killed her oldest friend, even if that friend was part of thousands of brains in a machine that erased people’s memories and tore up their lives. 

Maybe he is happy. He grins up at her and says something about heading back to the hotel; as good as her hearing is, she doesn’t quite catch it over the roar of the crowd. She shrugs back at him, and nods.

She wouldn’t have believed his grin could get wider--it doesn’t look like it should fit on his face, but it does. Hamid smiles, leans up on his toes, and kisses her on the cheek. Sasha could move away, but she doesn’t.

Hamid kisses her on the cheek. 

He kisses her on the cheek.

It’s just like--

Like--

Sasha doesn’t remember what it’s like. She feels like she should. But she doesn’t.

(Later, much later, after they wake up from this all-too-happy world and take down Mister Ceiling for real, Sasha remembers. 

He made her _forget_ her last day with Brock. She feels a little less regret at turning Mister Ceiling off.)

  


4: Grizzop, Cairo

The bar Sasha’s holed up in is… something. It’s not _nice_ , not like Hamid’s house or the hotel in Paris or even the one in Dover. It’s a couple steps up from her favorite haunts in Other London, but this back room is dim enough, has enough grime built up in the corners, that she doesn’t feel so out of place. 

It’s the kind of bar someone could die in. Could fade away in the corner, to the sounds of clinking glasses and bar fights. It’s not the worst place to spend one of the last days of her life. 

The drunkard she’s sitting next to seems keen on dying here himself, if the rate he’s drinking at is anything to go by.

Grizzop and Azu find her--well. More like they show up at the bar, and she lets them see her. As much as she’d like to drink away some of her sorrows for a little while longer, if she doesn’t get the paladins out of this bar, they’re going to learn a lot about what a dozen people like her can do. She doesn’t think they’d like that; they seem to brush off a lot of the darker things she’s done in the past, but coming face to face with the underbelly of a city might put some of it in a more… direct focus.

Being drunk probably won’t make it better. Azu doesn’t seem to be, but Grizzop definitely is, the way he’s swaying.

Back and forth and back and forth, just a little bit closer to her each time, until he actually notices she’s there. Then Grizzop slings his bow over his shoulder and zooms her way. She lets him run into her, lets him cling.

She won’t be around for him to cling to in a month, if she’s lucky. Maybe it’ll get worse, and she’ll be gone next week. She doesn’t think Grizzop would hug a lich. 

Sasha looks at Azu, discomfort clear on her scarred face. She doesn’t think she could hide it if she tried, and she doesn’t want to try. Eldarion hated how expressive her face was, and the way she couldn’t fake an expression convincingly even if she tried. Azu doesn’t seem to care, though, just smiles awkwardly and tugs at the back of Grizzop’s armor. 

Grizzop’s a clingy drunk, but Azu’s stronger. As Azu pulls him back, he lets go, but surprises Sasha with a tiny kiss on the cheek as he does.

Sasha stares at him. 

He grins back, wide and bright and a little lopsided, like he doesn’t know what he just did was weird. Like he doesn’t know that that was some of the first affection, some of the first friendly touch that wasn’t just for something else that she’s felt in…

In weeks. Since Paris, maybe even before then.

The way paladins are about undead--it just… he surprises her. That she’s undead, that she’s going to die in a couple of weeks, that her only hope is convincing an _ancient_ _dragon_ to help a nobody like her--that he knows all this, and he’s decided to be friends with her anyways.

It’s kind of sweet, she thinks. Even drunk, Grizzop’s still on her side. Still looking out for her.

Azu glances back at her to make sure she’s coming with them as they head onwards. Sasha drops her hand from her check--she doesn’t know when she raised it--and follows her friends.

  


5: Lil’ Wilde, Rome

Sasha doesn’t remember the last time she woke up without this feeling of peace.

Maybe years, at this point. When she was wrenched away from everything she’d ever known, a woman out of time, out of place.

It’s not that she’s _not_ still stuck, really-- it’s more that she’s carved herself a new place here. A good place, one with family and friends and a thriving business.

And maybe she’ll never see some of her old friends again--she’ll never know if Zolf worked out whatever it was he had with Poseidon, never see Hamid get his wings, never know if Azu does become the head of the Aphrodite temple--but she’s learned to have faith in things she can’t see. 

Sasha gets out of bed and starts getting dressed. She’s in one of the smaller rooms in the villa. She never wanted to sleep in the main bedroom--it’s too obvious, if someone tries to rob them--so she uses part of it as an office, and the rest as a playroom for some of the younger foundlings, when there’s no meetings going on. Even though her room is nowhere near the size of the fancier bedrooms she’s seen, it serves Sasha just fine. It’s bigger than most of the spaces she called her own, growing up.

A decade ago, it would have felt weird for Sasha to have a routine. Scary, even, that she could do some of the same things every day, every week, every month, and other people would know about it. Know her well enough to _expect_ it.

Today, that routine settles her. Breakfast in the morning, acrobatics classes with the younger kids, lunch; then in the afternoon, knife-throwing with the older teens, while Cicero teaches the others from whatever his latest book is.

Sasha likes the afternoon classes the most. It keeps her skills sharp--a pun the older Wilde would have liked. It only hurts a little that she knows she’ll never get to tell it to him.

She has to get through the morning first, though. 

Breakfast is always an affair. With the number of kids she and Cicero have taken in, it can’t be anything but. It took her awhile to get used to--not even the noise, or the amount of food some of the kids ate, but… the number of bodies around her. The warmth of a shared meal, sitting side by side with her family. It’s something she never had as a kid, and now that she’s used to it, she never wants to let it go.

Lil’ Wilde runs past Sasha on her way to breakfast, the same direction Sasha’s headed. 

Then she stops, curls bouncing, and turns back. Sasha keeps walking at her own steady pace as Wilde comes running back towards her.

“ _Mum!_ Mum! It’s my birthday and I’m a _real_ teen today and I get to start with the knife classes today! Right?” Wilde babbles, fluttering her eyelashes up at Sasha--though it’s not as large a distance as it used to be, with the kids getting all the nutrition that Sasha never did. She must have learned that trick from one of the older kids, since Sasha never flutters her eyelashes at anyone. 

Sasha nods. “Yeah, alright.” She’d promised, after all, and it was about time they started learning. A few years after Sasha did, but--she knows she didn’t have the best childhood.

She wants these kids to turn out _better_ than she did.

She moves to keep walking, but stops when Lil’ Wilde leans up and pecks her on the cheek. She backs away and tears off down the corridor, throwing a “yes! You’re the _best,_ wait ‘til I tell Azus, he’s gonna be _so jealous_ \--” over her shoulder as she runs.

Sasha smiles. It pulls at the old scars on her face in a way she’s grown used to, and she knows that she’ll start getting stiff in a few years, if she’s not careful.

Her kids will take care of her, though. And she’ll let them. 

That’s what family does.


End file.
